Still having problems myself just now with the Roku. I am a premium member, Cox Cable. I can watch the latest episodes of Naruto it seems without issue, but the minute I go to play something else it just stops working (ie. Rio, Saint Seya, Bombshells, etc.). ISP connection looks to be fine - I can stream over my PC and iPad just fine. I think I get better results using Skyfire from my phone than on the Roku at this point.

(if anything the problem is worse now than back on Feb 14th when I made the video)

Also -
I am always using Wifi with the Roku - I've just now switched to a wired connection (I guess I really did find a use for that 25ft+ cable...) and experience the same issues. Really I didn't expect anything to change but figured it was worth a shot.

I'm still having the same problem with CR on Roku that others are having: videos not loading. They hang on "retrieving" forever, kick me out to the title screen. CR plays fine on my computer and iPhone.

Watching catalog Drama series ~ Jewel in the Palace, Painter on the Wind, Dong Yi, and Jumong ~ I keep getting kicked out the first time I try an episode, and then if I try again the next day, it often works. When it works, I'm not getting any buffering on the Roku ~ even though I sometimes buffer and get dropped down from four dots to two dots in quality at Netflix's player.

(Once, however, Jewel in the Palace episode 7, it froze the Roku completely a few minutes in and I had to restart the Roku.)

Perhaps it would be available at that time if I had the patience to try and get kicked out three or four or five times, but I don't.

The most plausible explanation for the special problems of Dramas on Roku is that they have their own specific encode, and combining the lower number of Crunchyroll users using Roku and the lower number of Crunchyroll users watching Drama's and the higher bitrate for liveaction over anime, the priority given to bringing the Roku encodes of Dramas somewhere in the pipeline between Crunchyroll and Limelight and Limelight and the end user is too low. Another point of evidence in favor of this is that I have similar trouble with deeper catalog titles like Glass Maiden and the original MS Gundam, but far less often with newly release simulcasts.

Wherever the excessive lag is located in the pipeline, either Crunchyroll or Limelight, they need to be made to understand how people watch Drama series. When one episode is streaming, there has to have an automated process in place to be sure to have the next episode of the same encoding actually available to stream starting from the end of the current episode stream ~ and that should remain at a low-latency level of the storage hierarchy for the following two weeks.

Combined with this, Crunchyroll might help if they are able to track which accounts stream across both web and Roku and signal Limelight that a particular Flash encode episode access may be followed by a Roku encode access of the same episode or the following one.

If absolutely necessary to launch the stream at all, pass off to the lower resolution encode while getting the higher resolution encode in the pipeline ~ a single buffer partway into one episode followed by better resolution would be tolerable, especially if it is not going to happen again in that series as long as you keep watching the next episode sometime within a two week window.

Combining all of that, it ought to be possible to get dramatically improved perceived performance.

Finally, if writing about the issue on blogs and social networks, email limelight at [email protected] to ask about their response regarding the performance problems of Crunchyroll streaming Dramas over their CDN.

I have been with CR for over a year and we really like the service. It would be so awesome if the constant timeouts would stop on the roku, I do like the recent interface improvements, but it would be nice if we could add/remove favorites while on the roku instead of having to log in via PC. The Roku experience, when working, is the best by far as it is high quality, uses HDMI TV connection, has a remote and does not prevent the use of the computer. If you guys get it working, it will be all we use.

agila61's comments make s sense to me because i have noticed a clear pattern of when the dramas will not load on Roku. It almost like clockwork. Early Saturday adn Sunday mornings when most people are not watching, they load without hesitation. Same goes for late afternoon until about prime time ont he west coast during the week, after which nothing loads.

This appears to be a capacity issue - either at CR or the provider. If this is anything like when my former employer was providing internet capacity to 3rd parties, it may be a contractual issue. Sometimes the 3rd party seriously underestimates the capacity it needs. Of course it may also be the provider not providing what they should be in terms of speed and capacity.

All I really know is that Netflix is getting a lot of requests from everyone I know for Kdramas, because CR by Roku really isn't reliable enough.

I've watched "Feed the Pig" over a half-dozen times while waiting for my Roku to retrieve a drama, without ever getting to watch the drama. There seems to be plenty of capacity for the ads, but not enough for the shows. I've waited two weeks, and there's been no improvement. Making me watch ads repeatedly and then not allowing me to watch the show is not going encouraging me to sign up for a premium account (which I suspect won't solve the problem). What's the name of your service provider so I know to avoid them in the future?

I've watched "Feed the Pig" over a half-dozen times while waiting for my Roku to retrieve a drama, without ever getting to watch the drama. There seems to be plenty of capacity for the ads, but not enough for the shows. I've waited two weeks, and there's been no improvement. Making me watch ads repeatedly and then not allowing me to watch the show is not going encouraging me to sign up for a premium account (which I suspect won't solve the problem). What's the name of your service provider so I know to avoid them in the future?

Ha Ha! Same here! The first couple of times they were funny, but now they are annoying. I'm with you. I won't sign up for the premium service until this issue is resolved. I haven't been able to watch much of anything without this issue. We finished watching the entire Dong Yi series and are now hooked on the comedy High Kick. But most often, we end up watching it on my iPad because of the Roku problems.

I've watched "Feed the Pig" over a half-dozen times while waiting for my Roku to retrieve a drama, without ever getting to watch the drama. There seems to be plenty of capacity for the ads, but not enough for the shows. I've waited two weeks, and there's been no improvement. Making me watch ads repeatedly and then not allowing me to watch the show is not going encouraging me to sign up for a premium account (which I suspect won't solve the problem). What's the name of your service provider so I know to avoid them in the future?

Its not an ISP at fault, it is either Crunchyroll or the CDN they use, Limelight. Netflix seems to be able to get good service out of Limelight, but maybe that's because they are a much bigger client.

And since I got the premium one year membership during the after Christmas sale, I can tell you what happens for premium members: nothing. Instead of watching an ad over and over again, nothing at all loads, and then it timeouts.

Maybe its worse for the back catalog titles ~ the ones I am watching, since I only really watch historical dramas ~ but it so, then Crunchyroll should upload all their completed series to Netflix. At least on Netflix I can watch them when I want to, not when Crunchyroll's CDN decides to deliver them to me.

TalnSGwrote: ... Same goes for late afternoon until about prime time ont he west coast during the week, after which nothing loads.

I was thinking it couldn't be capacity, because I'm always having trouble 11pm or 12midnight ~ but I'm on Eastern time, so that's 8pm and 9pm Pacific Time.

I think load management is screwed up somewhere ~ because of the lower average number of Roku hits, they are getting put on the back burned by somebody. Whether its Crunchyroll or Limelight does not matter much to me. I assume that Crunchy has a high bandwidth pipe to Limelight, but maybe there is an average level of service commitment which runs across the anime and dramas and flash and Roku, and Limelight is managing their service to that average level of service, with dramas on Roku ending up on the short end of the stick.

I still reckon its worthwhile testing moving Roku encode dramas to a different CDN and see if they can give better Quality Of Service ~ let Limelight know that they have to compete on QOS on every channel, and not just "on average" across all channels.